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Welcome to Tesla to Mars – The Ultimate Podcast on everything Tesla & Musk! 🚀
We offer you a unique European perspective on all things Musk – from Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, The Boring Company, and beyond.
🔹 Florian – Founder & CEO of MisterGreen, a pioneer in sustainable mobility, managing a fleet of 5,000 Teslas.
🔹 Kees – Chief Content Officer & Business Development at MisterGreen, expert in Full Self-Driving & European regulations.
🔹 Kenny – Founder & Managing Director of MAKE & Partners. Finance, M&A, and investment specialist. Tesla investor since 2019.
🔹 Demian – Founder of Next Level Human. Entrepreneur with a passion for Elon’s vision and future tech.
From Robotaxis and Optimus to Tesla Energy and stock insights – we break it all down.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:17:17
Kees
Oh. Welcome back to our 39th episode. And this is our fourth episode already of the robot exit Gundam. And today, I am honored to present to you a full time employee and former.
00:00:17:17 - 00:00:18:03
Speaker 4
Employee.
00:00:18:03 - 00:00:38:03
Kees
Of Mr.. It is Michiru from down, so don't. Which is the name, please. Michiel, welcome to the episode. Could you tell us a little bit more about yourself? Yeah. Thanks. Yes, I think, you know, an interesting time. I think it's only three weeks until the end of June, and, it's.
00:00:38:03 - 00:00:38:20
Florian
Actually the.
00:00:38:22 - 00:00:55:08
Kees
Robots actually launched, so thanks for doing this. You know, this past guests. Let's see. And thanks for inviting me to the, Oval Office as a first guest in your, that new space, the first musical guest. You know.
00:00:55:13 - 00:01:01:09
Speaker 4
We are going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C..
00:01:01:11 - 00:01:02:18
Demian
Thank you.
00:01:02:20 - 00:01:08:23
Speaker 4
Yes. I've got my retired. Yeah. Shit.
00:01:09:00 - 00:01:18:13
Kees
Yeah. A little bit about myself. I think the idea. So today will be about, you know, about sending, and the, the million dollar question.
00:01:18:15 - 00:01:23:02
Demian
That's the reason why Floridians in suit. Right? Because we're talking about sending today.
00:01:23:04 - 00:02:04:14
Kees
Exactly, exactly. I got my suit, but, I'm pretty knowledgeable about, about these, and that's trending, which led me to, to Mr. Green. But my background is, is in, is in auditing and, mergers, acquisitions, before company, partly in San Francisco where I was, you know, first introduced to, to Tesla and, when I came back to, to Amsterdam, for I was, most others contacted me to, to start, let me see where I, was responsible for, for the funding side of, of the lease business.
00:02:04:16 - 00:02:45:21
Kees
And, you know, it's been a smooth journey over the past 5 or 6 years, being responsible for the lease, lease funding of roughly 5000 cars, 5000 Teslas, and, Yeah. Seeing that transition basically from traditional lease, how banks do that? Because, we've always had exact financing and, and also see the markets transition to, more flexible, you know, mobility solutions and, and how, how the team administering wanted to, yeah, to, to capitalize on those opportunities.
00:02:47:12 - 00:03:02:10
Demian
Because, as a sort of new, Tesla offers, leasing themselves. Right. If you want to buy a car in the Netherlands, where in the Netherlands, what was the difference in financing construction compared to the, leasing that Tesla offered?
00:03:02:13 - 00:03:32:04
Kees
Yeah. So Tesla, offers, a couple of leasing options. Yes. Through their website. Back in the day, they didn't offer a full operational lease, but in sales, that only came into play, I think around 2021, maybe even 2022 when, ailed like the one of the biggest, leasing companies in Europe, stepped, stepped up to the plate and won the, I got a request for proposal for the European partnership.
00:03:32:06 - 00:03:53:20
Kees
But they do offer financial leasing constructions, and that's slightly different. Yeah. And and receiving offers for operation is mainly to, to do business by some small, small enterprises. So we, we, we, provide like a full suite of financial services.
00:03:53:22 - 00:03:57:21
Florian
What's the difference between financial and full operation? These,
00:03:57:23 - 00:04:15:08
Kees
Financials basically only financing. So if you want to, if you, if you can purchase a car outright, you pay basically in some way agreements and operational is, is is more of, a mobility service or free. Yeah.
00:04:15:10 - 00:04:22:10
Demian
And what is more popular than the loans is that the operation or lease or financial lease.
00:04:22:12 - 00:04:27:13
Kees
I would, I would say sale provisionally. Yeah. Especially on the business side.
00:04:27:15 - 00:04:45:03
Demian
Yeah. So operational is also where, where, where you have something with your car, you want to have a different car. It's a bit more, that you take care of everything. Right. So it's one price a month where you have your whole scope of full service.
00:04:45:05 - 00:05:02:11
Kees
Where if you can imagine, like working on a big for a company, you don't want the hassle of everyday, issues and problems that can arise with owning a vehicle. And it's also like an extra secondary, are much more. Right, I would say, than working condition.
00:05:02:13 - 00:05:05:01
Demian
Yeah. Extra benefit. Basically.
00:05:05:04 - 00:05:32:12
Kees
Yeah. And it's, essentially like a certainty or guaranteed that you, that you're always a mobile and you don't have any hidden cost, so to say. And funny thing is, like, I started with Michigan in 2019, you know, as well. Yeah. And I started off in the, in the whole sales department. So I was selling the cars and he was actively trying to get all the funding behind the car so we can grow our fleet.
00:05:32:14 - 00:05:58:09
Kees
Because in 2019, we had our Tesla. We saw Autonomy Day, the first presentation where they laid out a future, framework to deploy and their plans for FSD. And then some of us here got very excited, so, you know, excited our former colleagues as well. I hope we can, host an important in podcast.
00:05:58:11 - 00:06:27:01
Kees
But you started working, and I think you also got, Matt Smith. We all know you also got invited, to, to talk on his book, right? Yeah. So, we were very excited about, you know, Tesla's, sort of course, and also the, the FC software that they were developing and we, we wanted to get more customers on board with, with FSD.
00:06:27:01 - 00:06:57:09
Kees
So we came up with, a novel way of, there getting, getting, the software out to customers, which is basically a growth model. Yeah. Where we were, we did some, some, some customers got some customer feedback and you got to see. So we got a lot of service, you know, service. And we thought, okay, it, the sticker price of the at the time of €7,000 a thing, you know, it went in three batches.
00:06:57:09 - 00:07:07:19
Kees
So back in the day 2019, it was around €5,000. Oh, then we had a first big jump. Oh.
00:07:07:21 - 00:07:08:19
Speaker 4
Thank you. We.
00:07:08:19 - 00:07:17:17
Kees
Had a second big jump from 55 to 60, 400. And then the last price increase to 7500. Yeah, yeah.
00:07:17:19 - 00:07:37:00
Demian
But, that, that moment in 2019, let's let's take one step back. You said, you know, you got all excited about, Tesla's autonomous future, so to say what were the conversation to you together, had what kind of conversations did you had as Mr. Green in, in the company?
00:07:37:02 - 00:08:11:09
Kees
Well, we at that point in time, the model three just launched. So we saw from the 800 to 900 contracts to order, all three contracts, and we wanted to get, FSD on those and those cars and all for our 60 because, back in the day, right now, it's becoming reality. But we were anticipating if the car has FSD, purchase, it will be eligible for, yeah.
00:08:11:10 - 00:08:35:03
Kees
So so so we saw the future. We saw this as a go option. So yeah. Yeah. Get it on a vehicle for a relatively low price right now, but the functionality is limited. But it does open the door to an autonomous future. And that's also like the promise that you gave. If you buy FSD, you will get access to unsupervised.
00:08:35:05 - 00:08:47:08
Kees
Given that your hardware. Sorry. That's a different debate. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But that's why we we wanted to jump on the bandwagon and the hype train was real. That. Yeah.
00:08:47:10 - 00:09:28:20
Demian
I remember that, presentation very vividly, because at that moment, everybody was tracking the model three production. So you had the Bloomberg Model three tracker, where the whole Tesla community was sort of monitoring if if they were able to make that that ramp. And there was so much pressure on the company, with, with, the tent that they were building as a, as a sort of extra add on to, to scale that, that company and, with that, full self-driving presentation that was being held at that moment, I had that feeling like, wow, this is so, it's felt so sort of unrealistic.
00:09:28:20 - 00:09:33:10
Demian
And it felt so that your Elon pulled it, pulled it forward.
00:09:33:12 - 00:09:35:10
Kees
So I.
00:09:35:12 - 00:09:59:18
Demian
I always felt that that presentation was something to, let's say, keep on carrying Tesla as, as a, tech company instead of a car company at the moment. And, but it was sort of super Elon selling the dream at that moment and really pulling that whole development of FSD sort of forwards while the capabilities were not there.
00:09:59:18 - 00:10:31:18
Demian
So I think the pressure on that company was so, so super, super high. And if they could not maintain their stock price, you know, they were not probably not able to attract money for the for the 14 years in that time. And now I felt like FSD was sort of the biggest rabbit in their head at that moment to, yeah, to, to to maintain sort of that, that that's terrible stock price which at that moment was very important to attract capital in the markets.
00:10:31:20 - 00:10:32:17
Kees
Oh.
00:10:32:19 - 00:10:36:02
Demian
How do you look back at that at that event?
00:10:36:04 - 00:10:47:23
Florian
But yeah. Well, you frame it right now as the rabbits. And using it as, as a way to position themselves as a tech company.
00:10:48:00 - 00:10:50:16
Demian
At the time. And now now it is now it's a whole different story.
00:10:50:17 - 00:10:56:17
Florian
I remember that at that moment, there was like, Optimus, dancing as well in that meeting, or I said.
00:10:56:18 - 00:10:59:23
Demian
No, no, no, that's way, way later when it now.
00:11:00:00 - 00:11:00:17
Kees
Autonomy. Yeah.
00:11:00:18 - 00:11:06:10
Florian
Well, okay. So this was the meeting where they invited, analyst.
00:11:06:12 - 00:11:21:05
Demian
Correct. The first autonomy Day. So it was the first Autonomy Day and held several of them. But over the years, the first one was for investors. So the audience was the investors and, and, analysts. So obviously duration, which is.
00:11:21:05 - 00:11:43:01
Florian
Purpose, was definitely the moment that he, already pitched the business model. Yeah, yeah. And he also said, if you don't buy this, it's like buy a horse. Yeah. And, and, and essentially it's still the same. And yeah, we've had our, two weeks, thing, for the last 7 or 8 years. Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:43:03 - 00:11:43:20
Kees
For six years.
00:11:43:24 - 00:11:47:05
Florian
Now. But so just two weeks we will really see, you know. Yeah, yeah.
00:11:47:07 - 00:12:07:13
Demian
But the thing was that, that, that they presented it back then there was for financials analyst sitting in the crowd. So they, they didn't understand anything that Elan shared. So there was very funny. But then after that they held the Autonomy Day every year. But that but those events had the purpose of attracting talent.
00:12:07:15 - 00:12:08:08
Florian
Yes.
00:12:08:10 - 00:12:11:02
Kees
Mainly. Yeah. Yeah yeah that's definitely.
00:12:11:04 - 00:12:26:16
Florian
Yeah. So I think back in that day we didn't understand as well. So, when you and Casey arrived, we, we had this amazing year, 2019. We sold, more than, almost 2000 contracts. Well done. It in a.
00:12:26:16 - 00:12:27:19
Kees
October. Yeah.
00:12:27:21 - 00:12:43:06
Florian
And, yes, we thought about FSD as we few I mentioned, but, we also thought, yeah, that's a little bit expensive, you know. Yeah. And, why there were still a lot of question marks and I think FSD in the Netherlands at that moment was like €3,000.
00:12:43:08 - 00:12:46:05
Kees
More or 665. Yeah. 60s were expensive.
00:12:46:11 - 00:12:58:01
Florian
Yeah. So with every I think half year the price went up by 500 to 1000 quite a lot. Yeah. So we were like anxious as well when we need to buy now because otherwise there's.
00:12:58:01 - 00:12:59:11
Kees
A rising stock price.
00:12:59:13 - 00:13:13:02
Florian
Yeah. Yeah. And and then I can remember that we were contemplating. Okay. And, scheming. Okay, how are we going to fund this? So maybe you can say a little bit about that.
00:13:13:02 - 00:13:45:20
Kees
Yeah. So, so there were two sides to that coin. So we were, scheming on how to sell it to customers. And, we, we knew that they were not going to pay 5000, €6,000 otherwise. So, so we, we we came up with a subscription model, basically with a low, low margin. See, which would increase if the functionality would increase, which was less, the, the business case and also reached.
00:13:45:20 - 00:14:10:23
Kees
Right. So that was on the, on the customers side. So we got a lot of customers actually on more than if we were able to increase, you know, the FSD, absorption rate of the fleets to two, quite significant, 35%. Yeah. In, in like a year's time, like where we, we, 35% of the whole fleet upgraded to FSD.
00:14:10:23 - 00:14:31:04
Kees
So, some of them from, enhanced autopilot even. Yeah. So that resulted in the, like the relatively lower price. But a lot of the model three owners, went overboard and decided to go for FSD. Yes, that's on the side. And, and I was I was modeling that out that I was also working on the on the funding side.
00:14:31:06 - 00:14:42:07
Kees
And, ultimately we were able to fund it. So the traditional channels of the, the place of banks. But we also, in that time spoke to,
00:14:42:09 - 00:14:45:18
Demian
So basically funding the software. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
00:14:45:20 - 00:15:15:08
Kees
The, the incremental, investments. Yeah. The cost to, to the traditional, channels and the, the price for the customer was actually super unique. And it still is today because, if you take €7,500, including that as a starting point, and you would put that in a 60 months leasing contract for five years, every other leasing company decided to depreciate that software to zero over the whole period.
00:15:15:10 - 00:15:44:04
Kees
And that would have resulted in, additional like an increase or leasing rate with, I think €130 or something like that. And we actually gave them two options. We as a variable rate. We started off offering it for €35 a month. And it could increase based on two premises. The first premise was, is, Tesla adds another feature that you have more functionality.
00:15:44:06 - 00:16:13:19
Kees
We could increase the rates every six months. And, the other premise was it's legislation allows for more and better usage of the goods, software. So let's say you have the the steering wheel next. If that would completely be eliminated that's worth something. So you can already join an android. Auto park and traffic lights and stop sign and recognition.
00:16:13:21 - 00:16:32:23
Kees
But you would grow along with the software and that actually, a lot of people wanted that. And we gave them sort of a like go option again. Because it felt like a carte blanche to a lot of people, like, yeah, I don't know what the increase would be. Actually selling it was pretty difficult.
00:16:33:00 - 00:16:43:17
Kees
And then we also had a fixed rate. So within 12 months from, signing to the the growth model, you can always revert back to the fixed price.
00:16:43:21 - 00:16:44:11
Demian
Okay.
00:16:44:13 - 00:16:48:01
Kees
At that time, €85. Yeah.
00:16:48:03 - 00:17:16:23
Demian
Yeah. So it sounds like, like like like a fair deal. So I bought, full FSD for my Tesla model plaid, model S plaid. But, I'm actually not thinking too much about it, but if I, if I think back about it, it's actually quite, not so customer friendly situation, right. Because I paid almost like ten K for it, and I'm still not able to use it here in Europe.
00:17:16:23 - 00:17:19:03
Kees
So yeah.
00:17:19:05 - 00:17:22:14
Demian
Those are very limited. So.
00:17:22:16 - 00:17:32:14
Florian
Yeah, but there was also the moment that so on the, on the customer side, we had actually had quite good selling position and then we had, good market to, for the market.
00:17:32:16 - 00:17:33:13
Demian
Yeah.
00:17:33:15 - 00:17:54:02
Florian
But it also, brought us to the next level of thinking of how are we going to fund it? Because, it's good that you brought it up, that the depreciation. How are you going to depreciate it products, which is a self-reports. Yeah. Which is going to be better over time. Yeah. So that's how we started our discussions.
00:17:54:02 - 00:18:22:11
Florian
And with that also, okay, if FSD is getting as good as it it's promise it will eventually deliver feature to the car which will upgrade the car to a car with the driver. So what does that do with the depreciation of the hardware? The car itself. So that's why we we thought thinking and we actually brought it to our current funders as well, is how do you look at it that the current funders were just looking at this?
00:18:22:11 - 00:18:25:19
Florian
It it's it's it's not software. It's just an add on.
00:18:25:20 - 00:18:27:05
Kees
It's just an accessory.
00:18:27:05 - 00:18:36:20
Florian
That's a sister vehicle, just like her other hardware. Accessories. Yeah. So that was the moment that we actually talked to Matt. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
00:18:36:20 - 00:18:56:13
Kees
Yeah. We we got in touch with with met to we, we discussed the, the value proposition for our customers and, and he was, at that point in time, both with sort of investment with, with, peppers and, they're knowledgeable about.
00:18:56:15 - 00:18:57:20
Demian
Everything. Tesla. Yep.
00:18:57:22 - 00:19:25:01
Kees
He's so we were thinking, if they also understand the value proposition that he presents in terms of, you know, increase the value, not if it's not depreciating, but, leasing value, like, like, you know, and also said, yeah. Then, they would be willing to fund that piece of the investment of the car and, potentially had a lower.
00:19:25:03 - 00:19:25:12
Demian
Okay.
00:19:25:14 - 00:19:40:09
Kees
Yeah, maybe zero because they also, see the, the upside potential. And then, we pitched to them that we would share the upside potential, once, you know, once the value that you see would increase.
00:19:40:11 - 00:19:53:11
Demian
Yeah. So the security is just people paying a monthly fee for the whole, subscription. So Mr. Green was paying the full, full self-drive, package and.
00:19:53:13 - 00:19:53:19
Kees
Yeah.
00:19:53:23 - 00:20:04:12
Demian
Yeah, because if you would calculate it in a monthly price, would what would been then be the time of, earning back the money on on that, on that.
00:20:04:14 - 00:20:09:02
Kees
If you depreciate it completely to 0 in 5 years time.
00:20:09:05 - 00:20:10:05
Demian
Oh yeah.
00:20:10:07 - 00:20:32:23
Kees
That would mean like €130 except for a month. But, we decided not to depreciate it fully. And. Yeah, also like way back leasing is usually for four years and for four years you take it back from the lease and you set it off to Eastern Europe or Second Market.
00:20:33:00 - 00:20:33:15
Demian
Yeah.
00:20:33:17 - 00:21:08:24
Kees
And like, so you were pretty quick to the party. That actually these cars could be driven easily 8 to 10 years. So that kind of the same for the software, right? Yeah. Yes. So then there was, you know, the basis for, lowering the, the consumer price. Yeah. But nevertheless, you know, the the discussion that we had with mats and mats, was very interesting because it was basically the first time that we were able to sell the upside.
00:21:09:01 - 00:21:48:01
Kees
Yeah. And and ultimately, it didn't go so good. So we, we, ended up selling it through the traditional channels, but it was the first, step, I guess, you know, thinking about, okay, what what if this car actually isn't depreciating asset and how will we fund that? Yeah. And I think that's an interesting, and interesting, link to the discussion that we have today with, you know, no, it's actually about three quarter, but you to show so yeah, I'm trying to look at the clip because, first, let's, show Matt Smith here on the screen.
00:21:48:03 - 00:22:13:18
Kees
He's a fellow billionaire. He actually started that with Redford first. Ferguson. And then we're going to go to break. Now it's getting a little bit bigger as well. Let me look at the time it goes because I think so. You you had the, the quotes is we need a more risk appetite with the funders to fund this new business model, so that it's the 54 minute mark.
00:22:13:20 - 00:22:19:17
Kees
Let me put it up the screen quickly.
00:22:19:19 - 00:22:23:19
Florian
And you are. By the way, you're one of the rare billionaire.
00:22:23:21 - 00:22:25:06
Kees
Yeah. Yeah, I.
00:22:25:08 - 00:22:28:05
Florian
Already told them. Which army is that? There are.
00:22:28:07 - 00:22:29:04
Speaker 4
The rebels. Yes.
00:22:29:10 - 00:22:30:10
Florian
The rebellious.
00:22:30:12 - 00:22:34:10
Demian
What what what are they? Oh, excellence. Just like you guys. Sure. What?
00:22:35:21 - 00:22:36:16
Speaker 4
It's a mix.
00:22:36:16 - 00:23:02:03
Kees
But, a lot of, like, Tesla insiders into the in the in the Tesla X community. So James Stevenson takes steps like, he does a lot of analytics and. Okay. Yep. You have a little bit more influencer kind of people. Brian, some future, is also, in there. So we had them in the show a couple weeks ago or months.
00:23:02:03 - 00:23:03:20
Florian
Ago, actually.
00:23:03:22 - 00:23:13:15
Kees
And now I am, propelled as to the regulatory and regulatory. So, yeah, I'm, I'm also a member of the which.
00:23:13:17 - 00:23:18:15
Demian
Which you are in the weekends. Right. You're the.
00:23:18:17 - 00:23:21:02
Kees
Yeah. Okay.
00:23:21:03 - 00:23:27:01
Florian
Let's, let's make it to the.
00:23:27:03 - 00:23:30:15
Demian
This is a gap between this week lives.
00:23:30:17 - 00:23:33:13
Speaker 4
You invited me to say something.
00:23:33:15 - 00:23:39:10
Kees
So let's, start off with this short clip here. It's not.
00:23:39:12 - 00:24:03:01
Florian
Yeah, this one as well. And then that's that's actually what, what what we trying to pursue with this podcast. As I said, we are actually hoping that that more people are getting aware of this, of this opportunity and that we can, together solve this common and, and become, more inspiring around this, this, this vision that we are seeing in front of us.
00:24:03:03 - 00:24:24:04
Florian
And, I think, I don't speak to a lot of, it's one that I think that, you know, is also thinking about this. It just wants to, to to give this platform for the robotaxi operators to, to, to to set up their own business around this. This is this new technology.
00:24:24:06 - 00:24:44:11
Kees
Yeah. I mean, I think you mentioned, you know, the idea of an Uber driver right now, an Uber driver today is selling their time and they're stuck in one vehicle. They're kind of tapped based on the economics of, you know, some rides at $2 a mile on the future, that same driver can finance a fleet of, say, 20 vehicles, and manage the fleet.
00:24:44:11 - 00:25:07:20
Kees
And that's probably a more rewarding job than, you know, physically driving everywhere. And, some people like the compensation. That's great to do that, too. But I think the the economic opportunity that this will unlock this launch for yours is really quite staggering. But they're the financiers are definitely so backward looking that, you know, they there's, that could be something that that hampers that option.
00:25:07:20 - 00:25:30:08
Kees
So I do think you need more, kind of, risk appetite and the capital structure to, to fund this, yeah. So this is exactly what we need. We need kind of a big balls, in the funding, structure. So someone with, big numbers actually drive. But here, you see, this is four years ago.
00:25:30:12 - 00:25:36:19
Kees
And then we were already discussing, like, the, the shepherd, the hybrid model that this was going to.
00:25:36:21 - 00:26:08:22
Demian
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I, you know, I, I, of course, financiers are mostly backward looking where I tell you, you've, you've been fundraising quite, quite a lot over the, over the last couple of years. But I think still there is like, you know, it's still asset backed lending. What you're, what you're doing. Right? So isn't it, isn't it a bit the sort of hybrid model that you, that you, that you then have here?
00:26:08:22 - 00:26:21:08
Demian
Because on the one side, it's, it's a maybe conservative market that you have, you have just asset backed and the on the, on the, on the upside part that's more sort of.
00:26:21:10 - 00:26:23:10
Speaker 4
Sort of.
00:26:23:12 - 00:26:45:10
Demian
With, with let's say higher upside potential, what there is, but it's still backed by, by, by sort of monthly income streams that you, that you didn't have. So I found your idea very creative to finance that FSD separately. And in the end the banks were doing it. But I would be curious what you're thinking is right now on on on solving this issue.
00:26:45:10 - 00:26:45:15
Demian
Yeah.
00:26:45:15 - 00:27:26:02
Kees
So that's that's the interesting thing because this was years ago where we were talking to Matt about value, appreciation of FC alongside asset backed lending of the of the actual vehicle. But fast forward to today. You we're not really looking to, to fund sell you we're still funding a car as a robotaxi. But, the difference is, is that right now, more and more is becoming, clear about the cash flow operations.
00:27:26:04 - 00:27:38:01
Kees
The, the, the robotaxi that you will have and that's it. That's a big difference compared to the discussion we had a couple of years ago. Yeah. Of course, you know, funding cash flows is something very,
00:27:38:03 - 00:27:38:19
Demian
Attractive.
00:27:38:19 - 00:28:10:24
Kees
Yeah, attractive and also mainstream and, and, and could actually solve like, the, the issue that we, that we had back in the day. So, I think that's, that's the interesting opportunity that we see in front of us right now. And in a couple weeks, I will be seeing full and, and that's actually the, the idea that I've been working on, you know, of that, since since I left my screen.
00:28:11:01 - 00:28:43:04
Kees
I work as an independent advisor at the moment, and, Yeah, this is one of the one of the opportunities that I see in the market. And I also, looked at the, the previous focus of both of is basically saying the similar, no similar idea and also very fun to see what his thinking is. But it's it comes from the same place where a lot of the, the discussion that's in the Tesla community right now is about the, unification.
00:28:43:07 - 00:29:35:22
Kees
What that's like there. So, you know, stock increase and all that stuff. But, background is in operating that, the fleets and. Right, and running the service company. Exactly. And and that's based on, on cash flows and basically the inverse of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I've just been, thinking about how things work in practice, and, you know, linking investors from from either the Tesla community could be retail investors, could be, you know, investors with Tesla might, and ultimately could also be, banks if they, if they see the same, you know, value creation, cash flows, and everything else to, to shepherds is just the
00:29:35:22 - 00:29:42:17
Kees
right time to, put up, your presentation. Yeah, sure. I think,
00:29:42:17 - 00:29:50:11
Kees
to give a little bit more clarity, like, with all structure. Yeah, it was. And what you. Yeah.
00:29:50:13 - 00:30:14:15
Demian
Before we go into detail there, it's it's it's going to be so interesting how this roll out is going to play out. Right. Because, we know that every five seconds there will be a car rolling off the, of the line. So the ramp up of this, cyber cap will be, it. Yeah. For Tesla, sort of an unprecedented ramp.
00:30:14:17 - 00:30:53:02
Demian
So maybe year one can be slow. Year two can be a little bit slow. But, you know, Elon also said in the shareholder call, like, we're setting up for fintech for a crazy 2006, but 2000, 20, 27 and 28 will be really crazy. Yeah. So, and the way I translate that is like, how how? Because if they're all cyber cops that needed to be needed to be operated, and you deploy, let's say, 1 million to 5 million of these cyber caps in, in a very short period of time.
00:30:53:02 - 00:31:16:06
Demian
We're talking about from, let's say, 27 to, to 30 will be around conservatively between 3 million and 5 million cyber caps that will be roll out. So, it's it's the financing, the financing part of it is very interesting, but it's it's not a roll out. It's more take over that then takes place because every cyber cap has the capability of five cars, right?
00:31:16:08 - 00:31:33:09
Demian
Because it can be utilized five times more than, than a normal car. So, I'm also curious what what you what your thoughts are on the scale of this whole, Yeah. Up operation on the on the operational side.
00:31:33:11 - 00:32:04:01
Kees
Yeah, that's that's a good question. I, I've just been, thinking about what the what our role in the whole ecosystem could be and how we could make that work. So on the operational side, we've been, in contact with, with a shepherd, from the US who is currently looking, to scale his business in preparation for, for the robotaxi launch.
00:32:04:03 - 00:32:47:18
Kees
So he's doing a sleeve of his, and, I've also asked him, for a position where, let's say, let's say I could be, initiating a fund linking him with investors. How how many cars could you, could you manage on your own? And, That's a five. So he came up with a number of 70 cars, because he is basically by himself, and he would be, running a company, a couple shepherds in his organization, basically, and managing, everything on the ground with, with an x ray.
00:32:47:19 - 00:33:15:00
Kees
Thank you. So basically, the two of them. Okay. And then his thinking was, okay, let's, let's have, like, areas of, where shepherds is like, his shepherds. So just there's multiple layers to to his, his business model, and every individual shepherd who's managed maybe ten crops. So, he would then manage a fleet of.
00:33:15:06 - 00:33:18:14
Demian
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the shepherd. Shepherd?
00:33:18:20 - 00:33:39:16
Kees
Yeah. The master of all shepherds. Yeah, exactly. So that. Yeah, there's multiple layers because in the background, that we had at least it's always just one car, one customer. And we were able to, manager speeds of 5000, for instance. That way. Yeah, it's very low maintenance.
00:33:39:18 - 00:33:55:00
Demian
Would be would be a fun thing. My daughter is now five years old. That if she goes to school and presentation and tells, like, my dad is a shepherd, that that's a fun thing, right? Yeah. For me to shepherd her back.
00:33:55:02 - 00:34:20:20
Kees
Yeah. So, thinking that's true also for for the economics, you would have to sign, you know, significant amount of, of shepherds to, to make it work to absorb, like the sleep that you that you just mentioned that Tesla will be able to produce. Yeah. And also on the other side, besides, you know, capital to acquire assets and to be able to.
00:34:20:22 - 00:34:48:07
Demian
Yeah. Because if your, your reasoning is correct and you have like one chip for ten cars ish, you need 100,000 shepherds with the, with the production rate of, of a million cars. So they're probably be also new ways where, where, you know, companies like like Mr. Green and so could step in to just handle larger volumes with, with employees.
00:34:48:09 - 00:35:13:15
Florian
Yeah. I think this a little, beta, Shepherd as well. Yeah. In certain places. So I think, let's take, a fleet of 5 million sour grapes. I think one third of those will be just about one third will be owned by, private shepherds. Yeah. With, 1 to 10 cars and one third of that will be owned by a,
00:35:13:17 - 00:35:14:19
Florian
Professional. Yeah.
00:35:14:21 - 00:35:17:11
Demian
Or fleece ish companies. Yeah.
00:35:17:13 - 00:35:38:13
Florian
And I think that's even further along. It will be owned by you. This driver. Yeah. And the municipality will be, it will not be owned by inspected, but it will be owned by the sons of the municipality. Yeah, yeah. Which the, inhabitants of that municipality will be co owner of the sleep of Shepherds. Yeah.
00:35:38:17 - 00:35:45:19
Florian
So, and we have like, a Geekiest Maximus. Yeah. Figure which will not be the, the mayor.
00:35:45:23 - 00:35:47:23
Kees
Yeah.
00:35:48:00 - 00:36:02:06
Florian
Yeah. And the owner of the of the Legion of Will do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we're doing now, we're actually kind of liberated on the home front so I could see the robotaxis, but. Great.
00:36:02:08 - 00:36:03:19
Demian
Extrapolate that on.
00:36:03:21 - 00:36:28:05
Florian
Yeah. Legion of optimized. Yeah. That's also what we talked about. We know from last episode is how is this new, stellar economy going to be funded? So in the beginning, it will be funded by a capitalist society. Yeah. With, with the issues that old, value will be extracted and will be put into one company.
00:36:28:05 - 00:36:53:02
Florian
Tesla. Yeah. Which will have their, societal, implications as well. So that's what we are thinking already in our back. And it's okay if you have like a fund which is owned by, gates, as mentioned, this, as the, representative of the municipality, of all the inhabitants of the, of that city, and, the Romans are doing their work.
00:36:53:04 - 00:37:29:10
Florian
The cash horse can go back to go to that fund and everybody can benefit. Yeah. It's like a big, big picture of this fund that she was trying to figure out. And that we already talked with, with Matt Smith about. But, that's why he is here as well. Yeah. To have kind of an idea of what's the history of what's the normal, type of funding of assets and how can we apply this, knowledge and how can we extrapolate that to a world where we have the stellar growth?
00:37:29:10 - 00:37:33:12
Florian
And how does the funding of those assets actually will look like in future?
00:37:33:14 - 00:37:33:23
Kees
Yeah.
00:37:33:23 - 00:37:37:17
Florian
So, that's why we brought up this presentation from view.
00:37:37:17 - 00:37:38:11
Speaker 4
Yeah.
00:37:38:13 - 00:38:05:23
Demian
Yeah. I was also making this, this calculation. Like what, what was what would Tesla need to finance their own fleet? How much money would the need to finance, for example, half a million, half a million cyber cats. Let's say. Because assuming they're making a profit on selling a cyber cab. Right. So probably, their, their, their production price is 25,000 or 20, 20,000 ish.
00:38:06:00 - 00:38:25:02
Demian
Let's see on the, on the, on the price of 20,000, they need 10 billion. And they have that on their, on their, on their balance sheet because they're quite strong. And in the balance sheet that they, they have that like 39 billion in cash right now. One part of this cash is of course, being deployed in.
00:38:26:17 - 00:38:57:01
Demian
In, in, in AI capabilities. So, we all seen the tweet of Elon that he thinks about, getting to one. What is it, one terawatt in, in AI compute. To, to for example, the, the difference between x ai and and the capability the Elon want to get to then exercise just like less than 1% of the whole, compute that Elon thinks that that he needs for his ambitions.
00:38:57:03 - 00:39:16:17
Demian
But I wonder if Mike maybe a bit off topic thing. But I would love to go into that. I'm also curious how Tesla is going to deploy all that capital that comes out of that, robo fleet. And curious to hear your thoughts on on on that too.
00:39:16:19 - 00:39:40:01
Kees
Yeah. It's you know, it's definitely an interesting question. It's been, I see there was actually, the post online last week, right. By, by Carly where he asked what was and how are they going to do for that. Yeah, that's and that's super big unknown, right. Yeah. And then Elon replied to, to him or basically to that question saying, hey, I haven't seen you about doing it.
00:39:40:01 - 00:39:41:15
Kees
They're asking people like.
00:39:41:17 - 00:40:07:24
Demian
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I was think like Elon talks already for years and years and he had it last week like to power whole Europe. You need like, a spot like Sicily ish size to to power whole Europe and the and it talks about this idea of having like a small spot on on in the US as well for, for a whole solar farm.
00:40:08:01 - 00:40:20:02
Demian
Yeah. I think the big goal is here to just power the whole world. But now, with this whole AI revolution, we need infinite more, more power to the whole, to to to have that whole compute work it for us.
00:40:20:04 - 00:40:31:02
Kees
It's just a different topic. Yep. And like, very interesting. But like a man, like. Yeah, it was solved nonetheless. I do want to go to the presentation.
00:40:31:02 - 00:40:44:15
Kees
we have some weird, the traditional way of funding a leasing company. Asset based. Exactly. Yeah. So it's I, I compiled a couple of slides just comparing, traditional. Yeah. Something to what we,
00:40:44:17 - 00:41:19:07
Kees
What what I say could be the the, the solution for, for the robotaxi funding. So in a, in a traditional, sfx, funding, structure, you would have a separate holding company for the assets, which is ringfenced, which means that it's, you know, it's, it's it's secure. It basically says for the funders and the banks, that as a holding company would generate cash flow to, these, these services, these contracts long term.
00:41:19:09 - 00:41:46:02
Kees
And, and, you know, all the cash flows are basically security, plus the, the, the car, any company. And that's the, the basis for receiving the funding, if you would then, fast forward to today. So the next slide, what we're looking for, we're looking at, you know, from the, funding side.
00:41:46:02 - 00:42:19:08
Kees
So I, I call it the Cyber Fund. If you are looking at, flexible cash flows. So writing cash flows basically that's typically not, favored by, by a traditional, you know, asset backed lending because that's based, and, the value of the car, in combination with long term receivables from at least contracts for five years and high risk due to that.
00:42:19:10 - 00:42:48:06
Kees
Frequent yes changes. Yeah. So this has, as high risk because, you know, who knows who's, sitting in the car in this case, not driving the car. And that's, who's using the car? And, what we, what I've envisioned as a, a solution for the for the, funding of, of shepherds is a combination of, of traditional interest.
00:42:48:06 - 00:43:18:20
Kees
So s based, financing linked, to the value of the car and, on top of that revenue share. And, that's also there was also the idea that, that roads look, slow to the last, in the last couple of us. So basically, the, the car pays for itself because, you know, you send the car out to, to drive to generate cash, in the Tesla network.
00:43:18:22 - 00:44:06:14
Kees
And, a share of that revenue is, is used to repay the loan on the car. And, and also, provides, you know, events or returns for, for the investors. So from the, so I've created a model which, which shows that adds this at a certain scale. So, for instance, starting at 15 million of, of, font size and then increasing that by a couple million per quarter, for instance, this would work, from the economics of the shepherds, the economics of the fund and the economics of the investor.
00:44:06:16 - 00:44:46:01
Kees
If you make certain assumptions about the, the cash flow that would be generated by the robotaxi. So the, maybe if you go to the to the next slide. So the, the shepherds, the upside would be that, they would be able to quicker ramp their fleet. So just a quick side, side note there in in the discussions that I had with the shepherd that I, that I, I spoke to, we see that the bottleneck there bottleneck is usually funding because they can maybe buy one or 2 or 5 cars, some cells.
00:44:46:07 - 00:45:20:10
Kees
So some big, big capital expenditure. Yeah. Yeah. So this is exactly so he's investing in, in you know use all ways right. And he asked he asked me if I could find investors for him, to see if, if he could get additional capital to to scale his fleets. But in doing so came to the conclusion that it's very, labor intensive, like, if you want, if you this is one shepherd.
00:45:20:10 - 00:45:28:20
Kees
If you want to do that, then yeah, you have to have a significant number of discussions around, valuation.
00:45:28:22 - 00:45:29:22
Demian
And all that. Yeah.
00:45:29:24 - 00:46:02:08
Kees
Yeah. Where are you going to, where's your business? Locate all that stuff. So, we came to the conclusion that it would be better to provide that shepherd with, you know, that's, basically instead of equity, and this is this basically. So they will be able to, to wrap their fleets by using, their funding.
00:46:02:10 - 00:46:41:05
Kees
And, the, the interest would be, asset base. This is the value of the car, for instance, high single digits. So, eight, nine, 10% ish. Then on top of that would be a revenue share of, let's say 10 to 15% based on a certain number of assumptions. Let's say, a robotaxi would generate, let's say 65,000, US dollars in, in, revenue, after, you know, that's okay.
00:46:41:06 - 00:47:17:15
Kees
It's, it's got you would still or the shepherd would still, end up with roughly 40 plus percent of, of free cash flow. So his business works, after he's, he's basically repaid the, the interest and and the revenue share. Then on the investor side, I think this is this is probably the the, the interesting question that we have the moment because,
00:47:17:17 - 00:47:47:09
Kees
That, robotaxi would generate like monthly cash flows. If you distribute that to the fund, to the investors, you basically have an inverse of the, of Tesla stock. And based on these revenue, numbers, assumptions for, for the robotaxi and these interest rates, you would, you could, could generate a return on invested capital of 25%.
00:47:47:11 - 00:47:50:14
Kees
Yeah. For the investors, which is which is great.
00:47:50:18 - 00:47:51:18
Demian
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:51:20 - 00:47:52:13
Kees
So what you're saying.
00:47:52:15 - 00:47:59:16
Demian
Especially when it's, just just like you say, a monthly, a monthly revenue. Yeah. Income stream. You then after.
00:47:59:16 - 00:48:32:22
Kees
That. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's definitely an interesting investor think, investment opportunity, for investors who are currently holding the stock and want to diversify, same as, as, as a discussion of Google stock. Right. It's, it's it's it's, it's generating cash, which you can use to, to buy groceries instead of, holding the, all the stock which and which is nice and it's nice, but it's not liquid money, you can assume.
00:48:32:23 - 00:48:49:23
Kees
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what you're saying or could you tell us, like, is now the right time to sell off some of those gains on the stock and start, investing into, a cycle fund? Or do we.
00:48:49:23 - 00:48:51:24
Demian
Need to, like, not financial size? Okay.
00:48:52:01 - 00:49:06:20
Kees
So I, you know, I, I come I come from a background of silence. So, I guess I'm a little bit more risk averse than, for instance, me. Just a shepherd.
00:49:06:22 - 00:49:07:01
Demian
Yeah.
00:49:07:05 - 00:49:18:11
Kees
Helped us because he is by, you used to us, and he's deploying that, for instance, the, Uber drivers. Yeah.
00:49:18:13 - 00:49:45:14
Demian
Yeah, I see it. Two totally separate questions, correct on the one. And of course, Tesla investor already showing interest in capital markets and doing that. But the stock is a whole different thing than for example, this is a small business that you then that you then, have for basically a sort of dividends, you can basically make a comparison to a sort of high yield, dividend paying, share that you don't have.
00:49:45:16 - 00:50:17:21
Demian
That will be very interesting if the, if sort of the financing part is also something that can be, something that has the properties of a stock. So it's highly, liquid. The thing I like about stocks is that you can sell them any time. So if you in need of cash. But this is generating cash. So how interesting would it be also for smaller businesses that has a supply in capital, for example, that can then say like I, I own a share in this whole, cyber fun thing.
00:50:17:23 - 00:50:23:04
Demian
And as long as I own the share, I get this, you know, predictable return on, on on it.
00:50:23:06 - 00:50:44:06
Kees
You got the entrepreneur and then you talking. So, do it every single. Yeah, yeah. And that's also, linked to what? What's going on? Yeah. It's, like, this is this is the gateway for retail investors to own a piece of the of the.
00:50:44:08 - 00:50:55:09
Demian
Yeah. Because if, if I would say I want to, set up the cyber phone. So I assume this is your ambition, right? To to set up something like that. You also want to have it scalable.
00:50:55:11 - 00:50:55:18
Kees
Right?
00:50:55:21 - 00:51:23:23
Demian
Right. So that can be done in certain ways. But the best way to make it scalable is to maybe have a little bit of those annual, returns flowing to that cyber fund. But in return of that, you get sort of, you know, a, a ticket or a share. IShares basically, a small portion of that, of that company that gives you predictable returns.
00:51:23:23 - 00:51:41:06
Demian
So if you have supply in cash, like I'm a small entrepreneur or I have, as an individual, a little bit of cash at hand, but I want, I want to generate some income. Probably 10% of 15% is very attractive to get that on a, on a monthly basis.
00:51:41:08 - 00:52:15:21
Kees
For the long term investors who already have some profits can do things that diversify and, like still keep a significant portion of the stock and profit from the upside. Yeah. Once robotaxi comes into fruition. And then, this is like a nice side business to it. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah. Coming back to your earlier question is, is, is if now is the right moment to, set up this fund and start, you know, kick their for, for the robotaxi, ecosystem?
00:52:15:21 - 00:52:29:05
Kees
I think, you know, being more conservative, I would wait to actually, see how, how it, how it, starts and how it ramps to the, the network.
00:52:29:05 - 00:52:30:08
Demian
But yeah.
00:52:30:10 - 00:52:58:03
Kees
Because, we did have some discussions amongst ourselves. Thinking through, what kind of car would actually be allowed on the network right now because they will start their own cars just for us. Yeah, we'll, a use model Y be allowed on the network. And, what level of hardware does it need to have for or, potentially free.
00:52:58:03 - 00:53:25:19
Kees
And let's say you buy a used model Y, we start with three. Right now, you could potentially, be in a position that, you are not allowed on the network for an additional year, and your model Y would then be, for instance, rented out to to an Uber driver. You know, over to robots, but basically in competition with the Tesla network that you want to, use for.
00:53:25:21 - 00:53:26:08
Kees
Yeah.
00:53:26:10 - 00:53:49:16
Demian
Yeah, but but for sure, there's going to be, sort of a couple of like these arbitrage moments in, in that whole fleet. Right. So maybe your criteria there needs to be it needs to have at least hardware for to, to, to to buy a Tesla, before you buy it, that used car. Yeah. So that's,
00:53:49:18 - 00:54:00:11
Kees
Yes. And and those criteria, I think. Yes. I would wait and see at least until June, weeks from now to see how this I will approach this because.
00:54:00:13 - 00:54:01:12
Florian
With the experts.
00:54:01:12 - 00:54:05:00
Demian
Going, yeah, there's the financial expert.
00:54:05:02 - 00:54:06:06
Speaker 4
Right? Yes.
00:54:06:06 - 00:54:07:06
Demian
Exactly.
00:54:07:08 - 00:54:09:22
Florian
Yeah. All right. Are you.
00:54:09:24 - 00:54:12:10
Speaker 4
Are you going to, apply for a new job.
00:54:12:10 - 00:54:13:12
Florian
Or. No. No.
00:54:13:15 - 00:54:13:21
Kees
Yeah.
00:54:13:24 - 00:54:17:19
Florian
You I'm, I'm trying to get some funding in place, so. Yeah. So I put on my.
00:54:17:19 - 00:54:28:16
Demian
I think that's my case. I have this feeling that I need to, you know, just wear wear my slimming pants from now to balance a bit of those, overdressed guys here in this podcast.
00:54:28:18 - 00:54:31:15
Kees
Italian food trucks. Tons of female here as well.
00:54:31:18 - 00:54:33:10
Demian
Yeah. That's like your.
00:54:33:10 - 00:54:37:15
Speaker 4
Head is enough to balance in a bit of my serious. Yeah, yeah.
00:54:37:21 - 00:54:51:18
Demian
That's right. Well, I had this crazy idea with Roboflow vlog last week. You know, if I looked up him closely, it looked like, a blend between Kenyan me. If you merge our heads together, you do get to get roboflow.
00:54:51:20 - 00:54:53:06
Kees
Generate.
00:54:53:08 - 00:54:55:15
Speaker 4
Yeah.
00:54:55:17 - 00:55:18:17
Demian
Yeah. I fit train this AI image generator, so grok, but it messes up the faces all the time. If you see. Net, you. No. If you just upload your own picture and say, you know, do this in, different environment, but, apparently there are privacy rules that you cannot just put people in different backgrounds, so then it messes up the face.
00:55:18:19 - 00:55:18:23
Demian
No.
00:55:18:24 - 00:55:20:15
Kees
Look to mess up, bro.
00:55:20:17 - 00:55:25:02
Demian
Like any. Yeah.
00:55:25:04 - 00:55:25:22
Kees
Great.
00:55:25:24 - 00:55:29:21
Speaker 4
Let's see you guys. Definitely. So, what happened yesterday.
00:55:29:23 - 00:55:32:11
Florian
Or when you were driving yourself today?
00:55:32:13 - 00:55:37:11
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah, I was, I, I myself, I think people were driving themselves, so I think there was an accident or something.
00:55:37:13 - 00:55:58:10
Kees
We're we're still roughly an hour in, a you were just in the midst of, explaining, like the the bottlenecks. Yeah. And the the risks and returns of we just showed the differential model, or kind of the remote view, but is it is now a good time to start in a, in a certain.
00:55:58:12 - 00:55:59:15
Demian
Coding model wise.
00:55:59:17 - 00:56:24:06
Kees
Yeah. Or like what are the risks and and possible. Yeah. There is the arbitrage moment squashed right now. Should I use instead of waiting for for instance, cyber capsule maybe. And that's, you know, there's, there's definitely an entrepreneurial, arbitrage moment and maybe, you know, in future there'll be other. Yeah. But from the investor side.
00:56:24:08 - 00:56:28:17
Kees
Yeah. Perspective. Yeah. And see what the economics.
00:56:28:19 - 00:56:32:21
Demian
Yeah. I because.
00:56:32:23 - 00:57:03:20
Kees
It could be was already starts like shepherding your small fleets either or renting them out on Uber or Turo and also already trying to be a shepherd and, and the groundwork. But what's the what's the difference in the unit economics? When you think that business case versus the robotaxi business case. Yeah, we we've, modeled that as well, basically from its business case.
00:57:03:20 - 00:57:14:00
Kees
So. Yeah. So the car would be rented out to, to the driver, and then we would have to basically use it for,
00:57:14:02 - 00:57:15:14
Demian
Daily operations.
00:57:15:16 - 00:57:44:02
Kees
Yeah. Robotaxi with the driver essentially. Exactly. And they so. Right. So our model and and this it's like for assumes the robotaxi revenue of roughly €65,000 or something. We need to put on the screen and, just checking and just checking on all of that, Uber cash flows would be roughly, you know, 20, 25,000. So it's it's a lot less.
00:57:44:04 - 00:57:44:23
Florian
Than the lease.
00:57:44:23 - 00:57:55:19
Kees
It's about lease is is even less. So, I thinking that, you know, in the, in the use markets, yeah, I guess it's, 600. So,
00:57:55:21 - 00:58:09:08
Florian
Yeah. Months or years, like 10,000. Yeah. If you look at the cash, it's, it's ten in the traditional lease, then it's like 20 to 25 in an Uber model. Yeah. Yeah. The robotics it's 60 and plus.
00:58:09:10 - 00:58:09:14
Kees
Yeah.
00:58:09:14 - 00:58:24:07
Florian
So if you look at these numbers you could actually say it's it's all about utilization. Yeah. So yeah the price per mile is actually getting lower with the number of miles getting higher. Yeah. That utilization of the car is getting exponentially.
00:58:24:07 - 00:58:24:22
Kees
Higher as well.
00:58:24:22 - 00:58:34:23
Demian
So that's but there also be, a demand thing. Right? If the demand is high, the price per mile will probably be higher if the, supply is less.
00:58:35:00 - 00:58:37:08
Florian
Less. But. Yeah.
00:58:37:10 - 00:58:38:21
Demian
But over time.
00:58:38:23 - 00:59:10:12
Florian
The dynamic of the asset. Yeah. And we're talking about something. Yes. It right now is going to be considerably, disproportionate. How do you say different than what we are right now. Yeah. Right now it's, we use if you look at an asset, you rent it out. It's normal that you actually do a subject lending program, which is your value depreciates, you add some servicing costs, and that's your, your revenue.
00:59:10:12 - 00:59:23:24
Florian
Yeah. Margin in this. But now you're getting into a world where with an Uber driver already in Uber case, the revenues are already 2 to 5 times higher. Yeah. So, something that cars actually.
00:59:24:01 - 00:59:24:14
Demian
Interest you.
00:59:24:17 - 00:59:31:04
Florian
Should be easier because the cash flows are higher. But what happens if those cash flows are actually getting like.
00:59:31:06 - 00:59:31:13
Demian
Yeah.
00:59:31:13 - 00:59:51:16
Florian
And especially times bigger. Yeah. How do you sense this future. Are you going to do that the same way as we did so in the more traditional way with asset backed finance yours or is it better to have like a different kind of structure, you know, where, everybody is able to get some more cash flows?
00:59:51:18 - 01:00:23:12
Demian
I do think with these kind of, developments, the more obvious it becomes or, the more reality it is, the more, streams of funding you will, you will get, because many people then will sort of jump on the opportunity. So I do see, I do see a sort of arbitrage window where, where, where, where there are some bigger hidden opportunities besides that, because Tesla still needs to ramp, their capabilities.
01:00:23:14 - 01:00:33:00
Demian
So they also use Austin to, they will use model Ys in Austin. Cyber cab will be ramped up over the coming years.
01:00:33:02 - 01:00:39:23
Kees
They also need to have fully functional FSD scaling to other cities as well and not in in the year.
01:00:40:00 - 01:01:12:02
Demian
Yeah. So so you have a couple variables that that needs to come into fruition. But the funny thing is, is that, the unit economics will become very clear very soon. I expect that within, let's say, a quarter or let's say half year at least, that we know exactly what the unit economics of, of your cyber camp or or, or, or model Y that can be, rented out there, because then we see, you know, we can extrapolate maybe you already from a Waymo car that is that is doing rides already.
01:01:12:04 - 01:01:44:02
Demian
And Tesla can maybe undercut the price a little bit. So there will be a bit more attractive, but that will become very clear. And then it's going to be, a high demand, less supply situation. And I think there the arbitrage can be on the used cars, for example. Yeah. That, that, that sort. Because once it becomes obvious, then also it becomes a more, let's say mainstream way of, of, of financing.
01:01:44:04 - 01:01:44:22
Demian
Yeah.
01:01:44:24 - 01:02:06:22
Speaker 4
I think we'll take some time before it becomes obvious, because at the beginning people don't know what to expect. So they're starting off saying to make the unit economics, we'll know about that. That's important. So let's say this quarter or next week, but before people really jump in. So I think there's also an arbitrage in timing. If you're early and you're let's say the go to parking for the Sydney.
01:02:06:24 - 01:02:42:09
Speaker 4
Yeah. And you take that entrepreneurial risk to say, later when things become more clear, people will, you know, come in as well because like banks and stuff there and all this, various companies, you know, so they will coming later. But I also think that they can shift quite a lot because if you look at the, although you were trying to attract more drivers or busy moments because prices will be higher, but because then supply becomes higher again, and then the supply demand side will balance out a bit more, you know, so that there's, there's a balance.
01:02:42:10 - 01:02:54:14
Speaker 4
Yeah. And for this side, they can steer it, I think more because in every city you have also vegan vehicles, you know, which you might say, like it just be at home at four and you can give your car between 4 and 6 because then you relocate.
01:02:54:14 - 01:02:56:07
Kees
Vehicles between different locations.
01:02:56:07 - 01:03:05:07
Speaker 4
Yeah. Maybe it was their own fleet as well. So I think there will be more and more flexible in that, that sense. But it will be based on the algorithms. Yeah.
01:03:05:09 - 01:03:32:11
Demian
Yeah. Well, at that it's going to be, let's say maybe it needs time before it gets obvious. But there are at the time that it's not obvious yet. There's also a shortage, probably in cars. It depends how the fleet is going to be rolled out and unsupervised. Is being, rolled out there. So if things happen very fast, on the Tesla side.
01:03:32:11 - 01:03:56:21
Demian
So let's say end of the year, it's already rolled out in every, every city in the US. Maybe the arbitrage is in that time that we are in Europe so we can go to the US, see what's happening over there, learn and then, extrapolate that in, let's say, the European market. So we have a sort of buffer zone then that, that you, that you then can have.
01:03:56:23 - 01:04:04:00
Speaker 4
A question on that as well. So it's a good point and I'm not sure if I'm, you know, thinking about stuff you already discussed. If it's dangerous, what do you think.
01:04:04:04 - 01:04:09:02
Demian
You know Microsoft by the way. So don't worry about it.
01:04:09:04 - 01:04:17:09
Speaker 4
Is there any like do you think there's a bigger arbitrage here in Europe where we don't sell you FSD at all in the second hand car compared to maybe?
01:04:17:11 - 01:04:34:12
Demian
Yeah, I would say there still opportunity, right. Because if you have this appreciating appreciating asset and, and it's able to drive itself in in a couple of years, you can imagine that the whole full Self-Driving will increase in value there as well. But not sure what you're thinking is.
01:04:34:14 - 01:04:45:23
Florian
This actually touches a point that we've been discussing as well. It's it's not about the appreciation. Yes. Of anymore. Yeah. That's also the fallacy that we had. Yeah. That it's all about the cash flows.
01:04:46:00 - 01:04:46:09
Demian
Yeah.
01:04:46:10 - 01:04:55:12
Florian
Yeah. The future cash flows and future cash flows. Maybe of a cyber cash will be higher than the future cash flows of the second hand. It's a little.
01:04:55:12 - 01:04:55:20
Kees
Like.
01:04:56:00 - 01:04:58:07
Demian
Yeah yeah yeah.
01:04:58:09 - 01:04:59:00
Kees
I agree.
01:04:59:02 - 01:05:00:13
Demian
But but then still that need to come.
01:05:00:13 - 01:05:12:05
Florian
To Europe. That's, that's the interesting thing of, going through this phases of thinking, doing this funding is that you, you, you come to these new kind of.
01:05:12:07 - 01:05:14:15
Kees
Every week, there's a real.
01:05:14:17 - 01:05:23:20
Florian
New subconscious, or conscious level. It's. Oh, wait a minute. It's not about you. It's not about arbitrage. It's about.
01:05:23:20 - 01:05:58:10
Demian
Yeah, I can imagine. But if you have I'll send this event this in June or let's say the, the launching that in Europe we're at the spot where we don't even have regulations for full self-driving approved, knock on wood cases. The, the the expert here, but, because then, you see the future happening in the US or basically the reality at this moment, but then you can, you can basically say, wait a minute, there are already thousands of these cyber kept driving around here in Austin.
01:05:58:12 - 01:06:16:03
Demian
What are the operators doing? I can assume that Mr. Green is the only operator in Europe at this point, so that that that this sort of pole position where it can be in, and take off all the learnings that are that are happening in the US once this is, is launched.
01:06:16:05 - 01:06:23:18
Kees
Mr. green is not, not really like an active operator or like a robo. It's it's still like it's just a regular leasing company.
01:06:23:20 - 01:06:25:07
Demian
At this moment. Yeah.
01:06:25:09 - 01:06:35:06
Kees
But it's very true when you said because we do have the advantage of, like, sort of a run up periods where we can learn from all the, the starting, the, the.
01:06:35:08 - 01:06:36:05
Demian
This new economy.
01:06:36:05 - 01:06:39:20
Kees
Yeah, that we can learn from and really deploy it at.
01:06:39:20 - 01:06:40:13
Demian
Scale.
01:06:40:15 - 01:06:53:06
Kees
Three years later in find. Yeah. Yeah too. And it's I think there's a couple of interesting dynamics at the moment. We saw the, the, the launch in China, right. That it was just yesterday.
01:06:53:08 - 01:06:53:22
Demian
Amazing.
01:06:53:22 - 01:07:24:10
Kees
Yeah, yeah. Can that also happen to Europe? Well, yesterday somebody posted a video. It was actually the case in Ukraine. In Ukraine, you're not allowed, you know, self-assess. And as it was since 2019, the navigation. So even if you would buy it just you cannot use your navigation data in, in Ukraine, there's nothing available. A lot of people in Ukraine, they buy salvage vehicles with a lot of damage.
01:07:24:10 - 01:07:49:21
Kees
So it's a lot more easy for them to fool around with the car. So what a lot of them do over there is they import and American or Canadian vehicle. And the car still thinks it's in Canada because it's like it's bought there. They, purchased the FSD subscription and they can use FSD in Ukraine. Wow. So there's multiple videos starting already.
01:07:49:21 - 01:08:01:24
Kees
So, yeah, the capability is there. And we're going to see in a couple weeks from now, two weeks maybe, that actually it can be unsupervised.
01:08:02:04 - 01:08:13:24
Florian
Well, but maybe to go back to the, the discussion we had about, the arbitrage opportunity, maybe you can explain why for us, it was a realization that that's not very important anymore.
01:08:14:04 - 01:08:39:16
Kees
Yes, too. So, the other, it's, So I said when what is FSD, can it also have in Europe? So yes. So that's, that's we know so, it's not. Right. So and second, we, we the second item that we see is, the second hand, crisis in, in Europe or follow in the US.
01:08:39:18 - 01:08:50:10
Kees
The probably because of the opportunity that's around the corner. Exactly. So and this business works a lot better with lower CapEx.
01:08:50:12 - 01:08:53:12
Demian
Of course. Yeah.
01:08:53:14 - 01:09:42:06
Kees
It's, I'm currently assuming, for instance, a customer side of 60 K, that that might be far too, too much. But if you if you have this, you know, all the, you can you can also see that. Exactly. Actually, what, your original, did. Right. Yeah, exactly. But to your point, slowly. The other thing that that that we came to realize is, initially we were thinking, okay, let's let's buy and also let's add, FSD and, the car costs, 50 K, 76 K, so that, the car depreciates to 25 or 20, but then FSD appreciates to 40 or 50.
01:09:42:06 - 01:10:11:15
Kees
So the combination basically appreciates in Excel. But then that is only true if if Tesla stops producing cars. Because if you cannot, they can then buy a side a cab or a new model three or a Y for 30. The value of the second hand model. So your Y will never be the third. It's going to have a significant effect just as the price increases and decreases.
01:10:11:15 - 01:10:13:00
Kees
We've seen that. Exactly.
01:10:13:02 - 01:10:24:02
Florian
And so there's not there's a cap on the arbitrage ceiling. Plus that ceiling is created by the new price of the vehicle.
01:10:24:04 - 01:10:55:24
Kees
So it's about cash flow. And looking at the for instance, if you buy a second hand model Y and want to, enrolled in a, in a, the a network, you have to take into account the, the, the mileage, you know, the minus the miles, it's already driven. There's more maintenance to be done, perhaps because you have to make an assumption like AJ also that, how how many miles with this car actually be able to drive?
01:10:56:01 - 01:11:25:16
Florian
Yeah. And what model that makes. But it's all about unit economics and all about about the cost per mile. Yeah. So, in a normal business, you are able to design the selling price. But in this business, the selling price will be defined by the design. So it will be defined by supply the market. So the only, thing that, shipper can do is actually get a cheap, cost per mile.
01:11:25:18 - 01:11:45:23
Florian
If you look at what, AJ did that he, tried to get the cost per mile per item. So not only depreciation, insurance, but also, clean for, well, the cleaning cost of a model Y will be substantially higher than the cleaning cost of the cyber. Yeah, because the cyber gate is.
01:11:46:03 - 01:11:47:02
Demian
Engineered for this.
01:11:47:02 - 01:11:56:17
Florian
Hold for this. And, Tesla will also bring, robots, the cleaning machine, the robot that's up, you know? Okay, the.
01:11:56:17 - 01:11:57:16
Speaker 4
Robot that sucks.
01:11:57:19 - 01:12:27:00
Florian
Sucks. Yeah. And, you want something that sucks at or she will not bite. So, the cost of the cyber drive will be eventually, your running costs will be lower than that opportunity that you have of of buying a used, cheap, model y. So that's what is going on. That's what made us rethink, okay, what's going to be the strategy for for Shepherd's in the future and how are we going to solve this.
01:12:27:17 - 01:12:34:18
Florian
So, the funding will not be defined by the residual firm. Yeah. Funding will be designed by the future.
01:12:34:20 - 01:12:36:02
Demian
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:12:36:03 - 01:13:21:17
Florian
And that's if you got that way of thinking, you will also we define okay with who's going to actually fund these stuff because it's not going to be the traditional asset based funders because they fund based on the in that, the residual value. That's that was our insight, wasn't it? That's why we, we thought of and that's what we are trying to invite everybody who's listening to this podcast to think with us, okay, how are we going to involve the community to actually become kind of a community owned owners of this future fleet of one cyber gates with two even more important tomorrow?
01:13:23:00 - 01:13:56:12
Florian
And how are we going to fund this. And we are just trying to get a first like it's a force at the beginning. So yeah. First pass for somebody, people to actually have it. And that's why we invited you to actually try to explain what kind of, thinking we already got into and, to see how we can actually combine this with, for example, with of we also be thinking about maybe we should tokenize the whole fleet for.
01:13:56:14 - 01:14:15:19
Florian
Yeah. But before starting that, we should also know. Okay, but what is Tesla actually thinking and what is this are going to do? So with the question we just had these, the amount of cash that Tesla is accumulating, what are they going to do with that? Well, at this moment they are buying AI superpower, right?
01:14:15:19 - 01:14:44:00
Florian
They are. Yeah. That's they I think that's but if you listen to the, for example, this guy from, from MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor, he is actually making the case that every, listed company in the US should buy Bitcoin because Bitcoin is it has the highest return on, investment with cash, which you're not able to deploy in other way.
01:14:44:02 - 01:15:12:22
Florian
So, we were already thinking, why, why should we make, like, MicroStrategy for cyber guys? So instead of of putting your money into bitcoin, why don't you put your money into, the cyber front, with the two, reasons for doing it is one, it has a higher return than Bitcoin, 30%, but also it has, has better cash flow.
01:15:12:24 - 01:15:16:17
Demian
But yeah, it has cash flow. Bitcoin doesn't have cash.
01:15:16:19 - 01:15:18:00
Kees
Cash flow. Yeah.
01:15:18:02 - 01:15:27:00
Florian
Yeah. So these were just the starting points. And that's why we want to bring it to first guys to see if we can start this discussion. How are other people.
01:15:27:02 - 01:15:30:17
Demian
Have you registered everything cyber fund related already or.
01:15:30:18 - 01:15:45:02
Florian
Yes. All right. I'm, I'm, I, I mean, I'm, I think we are on the, on the I'm the same way of thinking as as as you know is in himself is the. Yeah. This this is, this is just about how how is the new economy going to be funded.
01:15:45:04 - 01:15:45:14
Demian
Yeah.
01:15:45:14 - 01:15:47:02
Florian
Well it's not going to be one sided.
01:15:47:07 - 01:15:50:08
Demian
Well I would, I would say.
01:15:50:10 - 01:15:52:07
Speaker 4
You know like. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
01:15:52:09 - 01:16:02:06
Kees
That's and giving everyone every, all the cash flow. Yeah. One capital owner like that. That's, that's just a whole thing that we need to get back.
01:16:02:11 - 01:16:41:10
Demian
Yeah I get the thinking. But let's, let's, let's say, we see the future coming. We see this is a reality that is going to happen, the coming years. And we're quite sure that there will be some financing needs within this, within this, space already. So I would say if those two are true, but for the rest, you have a whole bunch of uncertainties that are, that are, you know, need to be played out and they can be played out within a couple of months, or it can be played out within maybe 1 or 2 a year or something that, that that will be the, that will be
01:16:41:10 - 01:17:17:20
Demian
the term of that. I would already, position myself to, this new reality kind of, let's robo flock is doing with his, with his, you know, test approach what he's doing. So he's testing the waters there with with his fund. I would I would have the approach of making this fund already, reality in the here and now and, start, you know, not only this podcast, but coming on other podcast and, being on on the offense for Tesla, connecting with everybody within this, within this whole industry.
01:17:17:22 - 01:17:41:02
Demian
Because once it's going to happen, you want to be the go to you want to have your homework already done. That's basically my case. So you have the capital already. And once, or at least the structure for the Capital One and the way you want to deploy it, ready. And then you can, you can do your best work with, with the capital table at that.
01:17:41:02 - 01:17:42:02
Demian
At that point.
01:17:42:04 - 01:17:43:24
Kees
Enjoy some like first mover advantage.
01:17:43:24 - 01:17:45:02
Demian
Yeah, exactly.
01:17:45:04 - 01:17:47:05
Speaker 4
You basically become more of a dispute.
01:17:47:05 - 01:17:48:14
Demian
So, authority.
01:17:48:16 - 01:17:49:18
Speaker 4
Yeah. I'm actually.
01:17:49:18 - 01:18:15:01
Florian
Getting an idea from your, lecture, lecture. Maybe we should partner with, the don't you say about this world. They, they just launched their own, their domain. Right? Yeah, yeah. So they they launched, Well, what's that in the new name of their front? Their consulting firm? Did you remember about you? No. No, it's not rethinks, but it has.
01:18:15:02 - 01:18:22:18
Florian
It's called navigate, I think. Yeah. If you heard about it, you know, it has some yarn nuts. Subscribe to our newsletter.
01:18:22:20 - 01:18:24:19
Kees
No, no. Thank you.
01:18:24:21 - 01:18:26:14
Demian
You are. But you cannot remember, like.
01:18:26:15 - 01:18:28:24
Speaker 4
Well,
01:18:29:01 - 01:18:30:24
Speaker 4
I would like to tell you what, everybody.
01:18:31:00 - 01:18:33:11
Demian
Yeah, yeah. Hey.
01:18:33:13 - 01:18:34:12
Speaker 4
Yeah, that that.
01:18:34:14 - 01:18:35:02
Demian
Part, you know.
01:18:35:07 - 01:18:36:20
Kees
Yeah, they are.
01:18:36:22 - 01:18:43:09
Florian
They are reaching out right now to implement, their way of thinking into companies.
01:18:43:11 - 01:18:44:18
Demian
Okay.
01:18:44:20 - 01:18:52:15
Florian
To help them actually build these that are coming. So they could also help build this stuff. That's what I'm saying.
01:18:52:17 - 01:19:02:15
Kees
I have interesting thought because, what I think is model confusion, that we were in the midst of discussing.
01:19:02:17 - 01:19:07:01
Speaker 4
Did we already say a big disclaimer that, we don't give financial advice or.
01:19:07:01 - 01:19:26:11
Kees
Any never, ignored? So we see it like a big jump in here for the investors. Right. Thank you. Yeah, but doesn't necessarily mean that there is no room for I think bigger angel investors were also helping Derek to, help as a kickstart.
01:19:26:13 - 01:19:28:22
Speaker 4
Which ones are you referring to.
01:19:28:24 - 01:19:31:00
Kees
Or not giving financial advice.
01:19:31:02 - 01:19:31:24
Demian
Going.
01:19:32:01 - 01:20:06:21
Kees
But, like, like a big layer, like our interest, for instance, do a hop in and start setting up. This is robotaxi problem. Is there also a place for, like bigger institutional investors or some other such as welcome to put some funds into something. Sure. Yeah. I think the, you know, the challenge will be to match, it's actually a venture capital for, so matching the funds that you have with the shepherds, that.
01:20:06:21 - 01:20:22:13
Kees
So you basically have a pipeline on both ends, finding shepherds, or Fleet Street operating companies and and matching matching their capital needs with the funds that you have so that you have,
01:20:22:15 - 01:20:27:10
Florian
Yeah. Sorry. I didn't have to, do much too much money or.
01:20:27:10 - 01:21:08:20
Kees
Yeah, exactly. You know, exactly. But yeah, for us that brings me to the next slide. Because of course like there's a division of labor necessary in this whole structure to work. And that's I think last slide. This this one. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I came to this one just to show, and it's also part of what robots like was, was, was thinking is are thinking about this the cyber fund is that it should be efficient and and leave and it should be basically, some form or machine that, that runs itself.
01:21:08:23 - 01:22:00:20
Kees
And therefore the activities of the, of the fund should be very limited at and and efficient and basically only limited to matching or getting capital to work. So matching funds with with shepherds and as, as a part of that also zedek shepherds. So finding them and and accepted accepting that based on, on on certain number of criteria which could very well be, I based so this but then the actual operations like, c operations, utilization, maximization and also cost sourcing, for instance.
01:22:00:20 - 01:22:24:00
Kees
So the decision whether or not to buy a cyber cab or do a small Y or whatever within certain, set of criteria should be, delegated to the shepherds. And then, of course, Tesla provides the, the actual mobility plus one. And it's these are something like a break even point that you, because you cannot simply start this with one shepherd.
01:22:24:02 - 01:22:39:21
Kees
Right. So so yeah. So in my model, I, you have to start off with a certain, size because otherwise, with the actual running, the slot machine also tells us how some,
01:22:39:23 - 01:22:52:10
Speaker 4
But we do. We also have a minimum number of shepherd. Or is it just because he basically every fault in the world starts with zero, right? They just yeah, get a bunch of money and then, some funds.
01:22:52:12 - 01:23:02:08
Kees
Yes. It's a good question that I don't have the answer to right now, but I think, you know, if you can if you can employ like, 10,000 would be more efficient then.
01:23:02:11 - 01:23:22:07
Speaker 4
Sure. Well, I think if you like, you could already do some, maybe like marketing on X, you know, there's. Yeah. People there with, money at this time. We might be willing to fund this kind of stuff when we do, big run up with text comes online and everybody's happy. Yeah. You can collect already some emails and collect, maybe.
01:23:22:09 - 01:23:46:03
Speaker 4
So, yeah, you already have. Yeah. And then once you start getting the funds, like, if I would be an investor, I would also like. Right. So you're asking for my money. There can be a big institution or a private person you want to know, like, how's how's it going to come back, you know. So what's my doing going to be how does it look like if you can make it hard with a we already have 100 shippers, maybe thousands if it's on the list.
01:23:46:06 - 01:23:55:04
Speaker 4
Yeah. We've already had some, maybe at least nine. So letters of intent of people already wanting to do it. And you have an idea of the.
01:23:55:06 - 01:23:56:04
Kees
The unit economics.
01:23:56:08 - 01:23:57:18
Speaker 4
Yeah. Here to get,
01:23:57:20 - 01:24:07:04
Demian
It it could potentially be also attractive to Tesla in that case because you. Right. You know, already working towards the future that data efficiency.
01:24:07:06 - 01:24:39:12
Kees
That's I think like like for sure is is very keen on this because this was started off as a car company is actually not a car company. But they they needed to learn a skill and make mistakes. And they're in this whole space. They finally figured out how to build proper cars, have good functioning software on it, but they actually operating a fleet of robot taxis that need relocating.
01:24:39:14 - 01:24:40:08
Demian
So yeah.
01:24:40:13 - 01:24:50:23
Kees
Like that's a whole different ballgame. So, I think they usually profit from, experience done by by shepherds. Yeah. And operating in Vegas.
01:24:50:23 - 01:25:16:17
Speaker 4
And yeah, they will. So, so my idea a little bit is and I think that your, all your take on this, but the more I looked at, their rollouts and also the robotaxi. Yeah. Well, my idea is, is that the mobile for using a mobile device will actually be helped by people like us. Yeah. So people will get the car and add it to the network and then the shepherds, because they they already said that they will sell some of the vehicles to shepherds at this side.
01:25:16:17 - 01:25:27:19
Speaker 4
They will own all the robotaxis, which will be just continuous. So this that's when the sapiens will just be speaking to the, to the program. So to that.
01:25:27:21 - 01:25:32:13
Demian
Another thing comes to mind. Tesla is leasing out cars as well, but.
01:25:32:15 - 01:25:52:17
Speaker 4
So, yeah, yeah, sure. As you said, interesting. The reason why is because if you look at the whole, RoboCop, model of the robotaxi, the side of that, it's all old mice that no heads should like. We need to clean the car and stuff, you know, but then all the liability, they don't have that vacuum cleaner.
01:25:52:17 - 01:25:57:04
Speaker 4
We can just go in. And so it needs to go to somebody who cleans. It needs no.
01:25:57:04 - 01:26:00:04
Kees
Shepherds and the other cars need to shepherd. Yeah. Basically.
01:26:00:04 - 01:26:04:09
Demian
Yeah. So that will be the Airbnb model then Airbnb first to Uber model.
01:26:04:10 - 01:26:07:07
Kees
Yeah. No it's it's the same like yeah.
01:26:07:09 - 01:26:21:23
Florian
It's like pretty cool how you think about it I, I just came to realization that they, they from one of the other companies of the, of you know, the, one company that they hit their first milestone.
01:26:21:24 - 01:26:22:20
Speaker 4
I saw without.
01:26:22:20 - 01:26:34:15
Florian
Any boring, without any people. So it could be exactly what you're seeing. That's the saga. This is without shepherds.
01:26:34:17 - 01:26:35:18
Speaker 4
Yeah. Yeah.
01:26:35:20 - 01:26:37:10
Kees
That's,
01:26:37:12 - 01:26:42:05
Florian
But the the the thing is that, you know, said you are also able to buy.
01:26:42:07 - 01:26:44:12
Speaker 4
Well, I think I might be as well. Right. So.
01:26:44:14 - 01:27:15:08
Demian
Yeah. So, so I would be very, a sort of aggressive in, in, in, in being, you know, vocal in this space already and setting up the cyber fun. So register cyber fun that, you know, just having information about the future that is coming, collect people that are interested in this future because it can can grow all the ways, maybe, maybe three years from now, you're only financing semi fleets, for example.
01:27:15:08 - 01:27:40:11
Demian
It can, you know. Yeah, maybe those kind of things. We'll, we'll we'll need financing. We don't know. We know that there will be a financial need at some point, but we don't know, what what what the economics are going to be. So if you could already capture those those, you know, those interest, that's that's it. That's something that will be excited me as for example, Tesla shareholder like, whoa, this is interesting idea.
01:27:40:11 - 01:27:42:21
Demian
You know, can have cash flow with my Tesla shares.
01:27:42:21 - 01:27:53:24
Speaker 4
Maybe we need to intro like the all in both cars. And then this is the marketing idea. Yeah. Everything I did with, with any all these, like, how can we market them work this. But. Yeah.
01:27:54:01 - 01:28:07:12
Demian
Yeah, yeah. Right. Because there is a lot of organic uptake demand already in this topic. This is, you open up this whole. Maybe that's also good to share. You open up this whole X community thing for, people interested in this space, right?
01:28:07:13 - 01:28:17:09
Kees
Yeah. So, so if you right now open up. So. Yeah, that's, x so, it will lead you straight to, to the dark.
01:28:17:09 - 01:28:20:05
Speaker 4
Place of the web.
01:28:20:07 - 01:28:20:20
Demian
X yes.
01:28:21:21 - 01:28:23:14
Florian
There are already people with suits there.
01:28:23:17 - 01:28:28:11
Demian
Yeah, exactly. Well, well, well dressed men.
01:28:28:13 - 01:28:33:17
Kees
So this is the. That's a real which is the owner community. So please sign up if you're interested.
01:28:33:22 - 01:28:37:14
Demian
Yeah. Maybe investors at slash investors, you know, that's,
01:28:37:16 - 01:28:56:17
Florian
And, so maybe to explain a little bit of what, what this community is all about, this community is all about this new economy that we are hopefully going to see within 30 days. And that's everybody, get together to learn from each other, to build and operate a robo fleet.
01:28:56:19 - 01:28:58:00
Demian
Imagine.
01:28:58:02 - 01:29:23:01
Florian
I also said a subtitle become, gave this lecture itself tonight. Yeah. So this is just the beginning. Let's get together, let's learn from each other. And, of course, it's also a starting point for actually, you know, potential investors because I think if you are share all of this are easy, right? This a community, you understand what's happening what.
01:29:23:03 - 01:29:27:14
Florian
And that's and that's the most important thing because that's what we've been discussing there.
01:29:27:16 - 01:29:28:14
Demian
All the time.
01:29:28:16 - 01:29:55:15
Florian
Yeah. There's so many people who do not understand it. Well, that's not the people that know the community, this community. It's only the people who are really, aligned with the vision. They are up to speed with what's happening. And they, they also see the entrepreneurial, spirit within this, and, that the hope, which is such an important one value from, you know, that always in this economy, it's about hope.
01:29:55:15 - 01:30:17:23
Florian
It's about, looking forward in creating this, this age of abundance. Yeah. It's going to be it's going to be so different. It's going to be so. And that's why I liked the reading the book of Stan are going to be, it's not about the old things and the old way of funding, etc., and the old capitalism, communism, all the other isms.
01:30:17:23 - 01:30:40:03
Florian
No, no, it's going to be completely different, economy, different ownership structure and a completely different funding structure. So let's please get together and try to bring bright minds like, you know, together, like, like you to market, etc., to bring this new economy into place. Yeah, actually.
01:30:40:05 - 01:30:56:07
Kees
It's a big unknown. And you see this prime example of what we've what we've been discussing. You like, the idea is it has been living in Mr. Green, in your mind, in your mind for 4 or 5 years already. And even still today we're learning new stuff and we're coming to new.
01:30:56:07 - 01:31:14:23
Florian
Yeah. But that's that's the fun part about it's in our face. I mean, we've learned about robo for two months ago, and it's amazing, but he's being on the same level as we've been thinking for the last 3 to 4 years. And these guys comes out of nowhere. Yeah, but he is he is also into the vision of Elon.
01:31:14:23 - 01:31:33:11
Florian
So there are there are probably thousands more of these kind of people who actually want to contribute to this kind of thing. Yeah for sure. Yeah. So let's let's get together in this community and let's oh yeah. That's something also we wanted to share is that much of this community, we also want to set up a space.
01:31:33:13 - 01:31:49:20
Florian
Yeah, like a weekly space where we actually going to discuss these kind of things around this community. And we going to invite people like you, like you or whoever wants to come and ask questions about things that we actually discussing and just also on this podcast for free thinking.
01:31:49:22 - 01:31:53:17
Kees
Oh yeah. Yeah, more about the robotics execution. Everyone's invited.
01:31:53:20 - 01:32:22:09
Demian
Yeah. I, I always liked, the approach of Jeff Bezos, you know, because every, he had this famous saying, like, with every quarterly meet that you had in his company, everybody asked, Jeff, like, Jeff, how is the future going to, to look like, and Jeff always inverted that question. You said, well, I don't know how the future looks like, but I know, the things people for sure, you know, that that will not change in the future.
01:32:22:09 - 01:32:45:04
Demian
Like, people still want, good prices for the product. They want the product ASAP. And I would sort of have this approach to this market as well, like, okay, what what what are things that, maybe Shepherd's, but maybe consumers want to know if you're, if you are a consumer, you want to car ASAP and you want to get to your destination ASAP.
01:32:45:04 - 01:32:46:16
Demian
That's the sort of the first.
01:32:46:18 - 01:32:48:03
Speaker 4
And a low cost, right?
01:32:48:06 - 01:32:55:03
Demian
At low cost. Yeah. Or yeah, maybe as low cost as possible. Right. So as fast as possible. As low price.
01:32:55:03 - 01:33:02:20
Florian
Without friction without. That's also something I mean, the next thing is going to be, gets all the friction out of the whole process.
01:33:02:24 - 01:33:19:17
Speaker 4
Which is a good point. So also if you look at the Waymo, which is way more expensive. Yeah. But it actually is, but still it sells quite well. So even though it's in more expensive than Uber, people prefer the Columbus drive. Maybe for they only cards.
01:33:19:19 - 01:33:25:19
Demian
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Or availability is also a big thing. Right. So how.
01:33:25:21 - 01:33:26:20
Florian
Did what.
01:33:26:22 - 01:33:28:02
Kees
What did what exactly.
01:33:28:04 - 01:33:48:20
Florian
Well he tweeted that's the Waymo expensive fleet which consists of 1500s of Waymo's just 1500. They already have a revenue of 250 million on a yearly basis. So that means the revenue for Waymo is 15,000 a month.
01:33:49:14 - 01:33:55:19
Florian
So that is already a lot. Yeah. Giving us enough data.
01:33:55:21 - 01:33:58:15
Demian
Waymo and Tesla is making right now Waymo.
01:33:58:15 - 01:34:14:17
Florian
And then we as we screen are doing on the on the on the lease. Yeah. And the only reason is because utilization is way higher when than that. We have with 111 climb one car. Yeah.
01:34:14:19 - 01:34:44:18
Demian
I have one one interesting, idea here as well. Like, if you are, if you are like, already having this car right now, right, you have this fleet of 5000, 5000 cars, already, you know, how are what what is your what is your thinking right now on the current fleet that you that you have or you become full owners of that will?
01:34:44:19 - 01:34:51:05
Demian
How will that play out? Or are the consumers becoming shepherds?
01:34:51:07 - 01:35:25:20
Florian
We are in a difficult situation right now, and the residual values are extremely low. Due to market their circumstances. So at this moment we are just leasing company, you know, and that's that's just the way we need to focus on that. Of course, we are also Denso followers and we are believing in what's going to happen. So, for us, exactly as you mentioned and installed, our, the way you're thinking is going to the US and see what's happening there and experience how this new economy is going to actually fold up.
01:35:25:22 - 01:35:52:01
Florian
Yeah. And with that knowledge, we can apply that knowledge to our fleets here in Europe or, or wherever, you know, we can already, find that knowledge to, to wherever, anybody is actually setting up a few offices. Yeah. But, we've been in talks with some, us, partners already, and they are they already starting, there.
01:35:52:03 - 01:36:25:16
Florian
Well, there we we started with one shipper who is already, building a fleet, because he already understands if I build a fleet right now and the robotics is actually happening with one software update, I got these cars actually not driving, 10,000 miles, but they will be driving 100,000 miles. So, the revenue he's accumulating right now is around 20,500 for a used model Y, so he knows when the switch is flipped, he will you will get to 50,000 when the trip is done.
01:36:25:16 - 01:36:28:07
Florian
So his revenue will. Six six.
01:36:28:09 - 01:36:29:13
Speaker 4
Six.
01:36:29:15 - 01:36:31:12
Demian
Six six.
01:36:31:14 - 01:36:33:00
Speaker 4
Six.
01:36:33:02 - 01:36:36:01
Demian
Or six to.
01:36:36:03 - 01:36:37:19
Speaker 4
Well this is not yeah.
01:36:37:21 - 01:36:38:10
Kees
It's going to go.
01:36:38:16 - 01:36:40:15
Demian
To six full six volt.
01:36:40:17 - 01:36:43:13
Speaker 4
So what is.
01:36:43:15 - 01:36:45:14
Demian
Triple X.
01:36:45:16 - 01:36:53:21
Speaker 4
Double double. In which case we got to shift it though. Yeah. So this is the is.
01:36:53:21 - 01:36:55:00
Demian
This is.
01:36:55:02 - 01:36:56:16
Speaker 4
So interesting for us. Yeah.
01:36:56:16 - 01:37:10:08
Demian
Yeah I, I don't know but to answer your question case and again not financial advice but what should you do. You know, start hoarding model wise or, having I think your Tesla shares their resource.
01:37:10:09 - 01:37:12:09
Speaker 4
Please don't take any advice. Okay. So no.
01:37:12:14 - 01:37:34:03
Demian
No, no, what I think is going to happen is the following. Like at a point in the future, it will become obvious in the, in the market what the robo what the Cyber Cup is going to earn. And if you apply those economics that Waymo has and those are becoming clear, there will be, a massive runup in, in, in the stock price.
01:37:34:03 - 01:37:37:22
Demian
At that point. Kenny and I had a conversation about it yesterday as well.
01:37:37:24 - 01:38:03:09
Kees
As the Baron because, if you would rent your car out on a platform similar to Turo or, or in the Netherlands, for instance, you have it's not GA. It's also a peer to peer network where, you know, you see, even with very limited, the uptime, if you do it for ten to 12 or 15 days a month, you're already generating.
01:38:03:09 - 01:38:03:17
Kees
So.
01:38:03:17 - 01:38:24:09
Speaker 1
Between thousand to €1,500 in revenue. So there's already like an income generating, profitable business case to start running a fleet. And once it becomes autonomous, it's going to be even even bigger. Yeah. So, Yeah, it's.
01:38:24:11 - 01:38:32:08
Demian
Also snap car in the Netherlands. What? You said that's, attractive to do. Is it popular or, others or lucky?
01:38:32:10 - 01:39:04:22
Speaker 1
You you certainly need to do your your shepherd's, desk, you know, like, cleaning. And then we'll make sure it's in a charger, because maybe the renter, wants to go to, the zones or drive for 400km. You need to make sure you have enough safe charging. Yeah, because they're also making system. But once the ball gets rolling and you do your your business good, then it's pretty easy to scale, to, to move ten, 15 or 20 vehicles.
01:39:05:00 - 01:39:28:01
Speaker 3
Yeah. So that's so you have to get the normal least. Then you have the, the snip car or you zero kind of like the Airbnb kind of model. And then you have the Uber model. So there are actually shepherds already, renting out their cars to Uber. Uber drivers. But the next step is that it will be rented out to the Tesla.
01:39:28:03 - 01:39:33:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Even increase the number of miles per.
01:39:33:14 - 01:39:43:01
Speaker 1
So yeah I'm looking for ways to drop some 1060 K into the machine or something and just start generating some revenue.
01:39:43:03 - 01:39:44:23
Demian
Yeah. Interesting.
01:39:45:00 - 01:40:10:17
Speaker 3
The interesting part, you know, this shepherd is actually taking a risk operation. Always. Financial risk footprint. So let's let those type of people do that kind of work take that risk. They, they're this is model. And the other side, you have people who who are just lazy investors. Yeah. Like me, for example, who just want to put their money somewhere.
01:40:10:19 - 01:40:26:16
Speaker 3
But the only thing where you can put your money into this is the stock. But the problem with the stock is what Gary also pointed out is that if you put your money in stock you will never be able to give it up. Because every time you get it out you miss the opportunity of actually getting more appreciation of stock.
01:40:26:18 - 01:40:33:01
Speaker 3
But actually putting your money into a fund it will creates revenue or cash flow every month.
01:40:33:03 - 01:40:57:04
Demian
Cuckoo cuckoo. Maybe some of your your two seconds. Enjoy. Engineer of this group. Could it be a hybrid model that you have that fund that basically owns Tesla shares. So so you already have this fund and you say, well, this fund just accumulate Tesla shares. And with the portion of the money where, where we're funding Shepard once that economy is there.
01:40:57:04 - 01:40:57:20
Demian
So.
01:40:57:22 - 01:41:00:00
Speaker 4
So here we have got an.
01:41:00:02 - 01:41:00:20
Demian
Opportunist.
01:41:01:01 - 01:41:05:16
Speaker 4
Business model, and then it tries to make it into a new model.
01:41:05:18 - 01:41:07:20
Demian
No, no, you just have Tesla shares, right.
01:41:07:20 - 01:41:16:10
Speaker 4
So like, you can say, we have city rates at about a million. You say I rea I put 10 million in this or so. And I guess it's still if you go alone.
01:41:16:13 - 01:41:29:04
Demian
No, no, you're not going to loan. But you say in the meanwhile once that the economy said, oh, no, no, we're not we're not, playing fool's games here. Kenny, but I think it's a serious opportunity to just.
01:41:29:06 - 01:41:33:18
Speaker 3
Also say, well, oh, yeah, it makes it with all the astronomy,
01:41:33:20 - 01:41:34:16
Demian
When that's possible.
01:41:34:16 - 01:41:38:22
Speaker 4
You that's more interesting, you know, otherwise you could say, why don't you put yourself into this?
01:41:38:24 - 01:41:45:22
Demian
Yeah. Because then you don't have the cash flow generating thing that you have with, with the Tesla fund. So I'm only selling.
01:41:45:24 - 01:42:01:16
Speaker 4
Let's say that you allocate a part to the Tesla. You have to do this yourself and not not do it. And so let's say you have €100,000 and you want to allocate 30% to that's nothing. You can do this yourself and then 70 to the robotaxi or whatever you want.
01:42:01:18 - 01:42:27:08
Demian
So yeah but they're, they're also like like there's even the Agora got the stock ETF right. And everybody knows how. Yeah. How the other thing is performing. So I would say if you have like a flexible structure where you're already able to raise capital that people already know what they, what they have within that, capital structure.
01:42:27:10 - 01:42:47:15
Demian
But a creating the flexibility for yourself to already go out there in the market then. Yeah. Just start start making it happen. And only a fund with Tesla in it. Okay. I agree that, normally you want to own it yourself. That's that's probably the best situation. But but those so.
01:42:47:17 - 01:42:47:20
Speaker 4
Right.
01:42:47:22 - 01:42:54:12
Demian
Yes. But also those cash flows are like super, super interesting that you that you can generate in the future.
01:42:54:14 - 01:43:08:13
Speaker 3
Part from the operation of parties. And so that way we've been talking about it as well. How how does it work if you set up a funds that attracts money from all over the world, or do you need to set up like, something in the US and from Europe?
01:43:08:14 - 01:43:32:02
Speaker 4
I it's it's not really that easy. A few of those in as well. So there are boundaries, you know, so if you want to raise money in the US and you don't want to have SEC filings, the SEC is regulatory body which controls the financial system basically. So if you want to do like huge amounts or all of retail, then you have to make prospectus, which is like booklets explain what you do or the risks are at zero.
01:43:32:08 - 01:43:55:13
Speaker 4
So you do that some serious stuff and then lawyers are involved. Counter influence is quite expensive. So same as here in the Netherlands and in Europe. So it's it's not different. Yeah. So do a certain amount. Yes, you can, but I think once you, above the five, four, 5 million Netherlands or 12 in the US, I think are roughly the numbers, then there's more.
01:43:56:18 - 01:43:58:09
Demian
Yeah. That's yeah.
01:43:58:11 - 01:44:10:14
Speaker 3
Actually involves a lot of legal, structured. And that's why. Well, the stock also mentioned last week, that maybe it's a good idea to actually tokenize it, because then you don't need to legalize everything. Yeah.
01:44:10:16 - 01:44:28:02
Speaker 4
Yes, you can. On the other hand, like, if you still look at crypto, at least from my point of view, I think there are still a lot of cowboys there. You know, it's not not very regulated. Maybe Coinbase tried to do it and like you sort of something for putting your money into Bitcoin. And there has been coming more funds to do it.
01:44:28:04 - 01:44:42:00
Speaker 4
But let me focus on Bitcoin as well. So if you want to have people who are a little bit, I would say defensive or risk averse, then that might scare them off, you know, to put money in, some tokens and that they do. Yeah.
01:44:42:00 - 01:45:06:01
Speaker 3
So that's, that's exactly what I wanted to hear from you, because I think, in this new economy, this new state are going to meet, and you want to redistribute the wealth to, the people you actually need to kind of some coin, which is based on real world essence with real world cash flows. And I think robots and where we're Texans are actually real world essence.
01:45:06:03 - 01:45:17:01
Speaker 3
And with real world cash flows. But at this moment, if we are not, it's actually happens. What you're saying that all cyber cash will be owned by Tesla and all the, the,
01:45:17:03 - 01:45:18:12
Speaker 1
The, the wealth creation and.
01:45:18:12 - 01:45:28:04
Speaker 3
The wealth creation, but only some somewhat to decide. Yeah, we are shareholders. Will be very happy. But this is not sustainable for, a new set of rules.
01:45:28:04 - 01:45:37:18
Speaker 1
In the, in the the current climate surrounding Elon Musk and the like, the sentiments surrounding you almost like this will be detrimental to. Yeah. You know.
01:45:37:19 - 01:45:41:16
Speaker 3
And I'm, I'm not sure that that you know, has been thinking about this as well.
01:45:41:18 - 01:46:04:02
Speaker 4
So you need trust right. So I mean, it's it's so if you don't tokenize it and you start something people are trying to do stuff you don't want to be done to you or to your money. You go to the SEC or you go and, and then on the, the async them, I have this guy, he's selling me stuff and it's not, it's not what you should be selling or how you should be doing it.
01:46:04:04 - 01:46:07:02
Speaker 4
Well, if something happens with a token to where you go.
01:46:07:04 - 01:46:18:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's exactly what's happening in the US right now, is that they actually, legalizing this whole crypto economy and they're they're trying to get it more mainstream. Yeah. It's.
01:46:18:18 - 01:46:27:09
Speaker 4
Yes. Yes, but it's happening because they're getting on the Coinbase platform. And Coinbase is being overseen by the SEC.
01:46:27:11 - 01:46:35:20
Speaker 1
So guys I think this is a very interesting topic to go into like a next. So you know you just are you know and.
01:46:35:22 - 01:46:42:06
Speaker 3
And I know who we are going to be. In fact in the no doubt. And the the CEO of X. You know.
01:46:42:08 - 01:46:45:13
Speaker 1
Let's do that I understand it's an open invitation.
01:46:45:15 - 01:46:48:03
Speaker 3
Or or David sex himself.
01:46:48:05 - 01:46:54:24
Speaker 4
Yeah. Big one or otherwise to the guy for like yeah. Micro center like say yeah, it's the Democrats in the West.
01:46:55:01 - 01:46:56:08
Speaker 3
It's or feelgood.
01:46:56:14 - 01:47:20:15
Speaker 1
Government or we're going to be. Yeah. Put it on X and Mark because that's not to get them on board. Thanks. Thank you for being here. And thanks for putting all the time and years into, creating this and thinking about it. And yeah, looking forward to inviting the next guest and to learn even more about the growth space and in two weeks from now, we're going to see.
01:47:20:17 - 01:47:23:05
Speaker 4
What's going on with that.
01:47:23:07 - 01:47:24:21
Speaker 1
Few weeks. Stay positive.
01:47:24:22 - 01:47:26:03
Speaker 4
Once they've all said and.
01:47:26:03 - 01:47:31:05
Speaker 1
Said, thanks to thank you all for watching and, see each other next episode.